Spilled Ink
by Tibbins
Summary: Set after 14x12 'Prophet and Loss'. This had become almost routine over the years, expected even. If Dean hadn't wanted company, at least on some level, he would have taken the beer back to his room. A quiet, late-night conversation. Destiel.


**Hi guys! It has been so long since I posted anything! Sorry! I have so many things in the works at the moment though, I've just been finding it tough to finish them because I really want them to be good.**

**This is a short little coda of the episode Prophet and Loss (possibly my favourite episode to date). Destiel, of course. I hope you like it.**

**Enjoy ^_^**

Castiel found Dean, as he had so many times before, sitting at the kitchen table, a beer in hand and despair etched into every crease of his face. Dark shadows framed his eyes and his hand trembled slightly as he lifted the bottle to drink, his throat working slow to get as much beer as he could between each swallow; another nightmare, then.

Castiel slipped into the seat opposite, his coat rustling rather obviously over the low buzz of the heavy-duty lights and the soothing gurgle as the refrigerator awoke to do… whatever it was that the contraption did when it made that sound; he had never asked, but the Winchesters ignored it like it was normal. He spared it a suspicious look all the same, even as Dean glanced up at him, unsurprised by his appearance. This had become almost routine over the years, expected even. If Dean hadn't wanted company, at least on some level, he would have taken the beer back to his room. He knew that Castiel walked the halls most nights, using the time to think in between whatever research Sam had tasked him with, or working his way through Netflix. Cas slid his gaze back over from the fridge.

"Couldn't sleep?"

It was a stupid question, a flimsy excuse to break the silence. They both knew it. Dean just grunted and jerked his head towards the cardboard holder of beer, exposing the red mark on his jaw from Sam's earlier punch. Two were already missing. Castiel took one. He didn't particularly want it, but it was part of the ritual and it was important that Dean not drink alone. He twisted off the top with a faint hiss of gas and took a small sip, the bitterness coating his tongue was more memory than actual experience, but the texture of the bubbles remained the same to his non-human tastebuds. He sighed, his eyes flicking to Dean's hands. His nails were too-short, red raw skin poking out from where more nail should be. But no blood, no jagged edges. Dean had clearly taken the time to clean himself up before leaving his room to look for alcohol. Although that meant that he was actively trying to hide what his nightmares were doing to him, Cas couldn't help but be relieved that he didn't have to see it. He felt a shudder nudge at the top of his spine as he remembered Sam on the phone, halfway to desperate tears as he described the bloody claw marks in the wall.

He carefully placed his beer down with a soft thud and levelled his gaze at Dean, who was watching him, waiting.

"Thank you," Cas said, swallowing around nothing, his tongue tacky against the roof of his mouth despite the beer, "for agreeing to try and find another way. _Thank you._"

Dean shrugged. His eyes skirting around Cas' own and back down to the grain of the table top.

There was silence for a few moments while Cas took another drink, trying to gain control of the growing ball of emotion lodged somewhere in his oesophagus.

"Don't think I didn't notice you _not_ promise to let me go when the time comes." Dean said eventually, his voice rough from sleep and the carbonated beer. "I noticed. And you're gonna have to."

"Promise or let you go?"

"Both."

Dean's eyes were back on his now, there was no bravado in them, no joke tucked away. They were flat and serious and determined.

Cas shook his head. "No."

Dean let out a sigh that was almost a growl of frustration, "Cas-"

"No." Cas said again, more firmly, "I won't."

"You're gonna have to." Dean repeated, matching certainty for certainty, "Whether you promise me or not, the day is gonna come when I have to get inside that box and seal the door."

Cas glared back at him, jaw clenching, stubbornly refusing to give ground.

After a few seconds, Dean rolled his eyes, making Cas feel more like an immature child than like he'd actually achieved something, which was impressive for someone who hadn't experienced even a tenth of his own lifespan.

"Do you really think this is how I wanted things to go?" Dean asked as he leaned forward, beer forgotten. His flannel overshirt was rolled up to his elbows and the fine hair on his forearms stood on end, pulling up his skin in bumps. Castiel wondered if he was cold, but knew better than to ask; he pulled his eyes back up, made himself look at Dean's earnest expression and somehow, the earnestness hurt more than dismissal, "when Billie gave me that book and I read what was in it..." He scoffed without humour and squeezed his eyes shut for a second while Cas' heart stuttered over the next beat, "I wish things were different," Dean continued, wiping a hand down his face to try and clear it of emotion and failed, at least to Cas' eyes, "I wish that page had said somethin' else. But wishing don't make it so and it said what it said and that was the_ only_ one that said I didn't destroy the world. Now Sam- Sam needs time; he needs to try. I get it and I love him for it but he needs to hit that wall for himself. I can't tell him there's no other way until he can't find one, I know that. It's why I didn't wanna tell him in the first place."

"And me?" Cas couldn't help but ask, the words tinged with a bitterness that wasn't entirely relevant to the current argument, "You didn't make a spot for me on your goodbye tour?"

"Come on, Cas-"

"Were you going to just disappear and think I wouldn't notice?" He pressed, knowing it was selfish, knowing it wasn't helpful, knowing he was being hypocritical, what with the Empty a constant slow scratch at the back of his mind but the words kept coming, "Send me a text message from the bottom of the Atlantic?"

Dean dropped his forehead to his palms, "I don't- I don't have the energy for a fight right now." He said, his voice muffled, strained, his skin suddenly paler than it had been a few seconds ago and he flinched violently at a sound that Castiel couldn't hear.

His anger fizzled out immediately.

"Michael?" He asked, half-standing and reaching out as though he could be any use at all, as though all he had to do was touch Dean to take away his pain. Habit, he supposed, or instinct; even though his grace would have no effect in this situation, still he reached for it. After the pointlessness of his action hit him he pulled his hand back but didn't sit down again until Dean waved at him to do so, and even then reluctantly.

"I got it, I just-" Dean shook himself, taking a few slow, deep breaths that Cas automatically mimicked, "okay," he looked back up, his eyes even darker now, even more desperate and Cas felt something tear in his chest.

"I don't know how long I can hold him," he admitted, "I know Sam needs time and all and I'm trying to give him that, I'm _trying_, I just- it's getting harder. I dunno if he's getting stronger or if he's just wearing me down but it's getting harder."

Cas didn't know what to say to that. Dean looked so _defeated_, and not in the more familiar case-gone-wrong, weight-of-the-world kind of way, not even in his almost constant self-disparaging way, this was deeper, this was _worse_. He looked so vulnerable and alone that Castiel saw a flash of the child he must have been.

"This whole plan…" Dean continued, his voice like rusted metal, "it's not the kamikaze mission you and Sam think it is. You're not saving me from myself this time. I'm not trying to tap out, but this is the only option I got and I don't have the time or the brainpower to come up with another."

Cas reached out a hand to lay it on Dean's forearm. His skin was warm despite the goosebumps, _"We,"_ he said firmly, and when Dean blinked at him in confusion, "_We _will come up with another. You're not alone in this, Dean, and I'm sorry if I made you feel like you were; I've been thinking in terms of you versus me and Sam but that's not what this is. We're not on different sides, we're all just trying to come up with different solutions."

"We _have _the solution, Cas. It's got Death's stamp of approval and everything. That's it, that's all there is."

"So far," Cas implored, "And… and the Mal'ak box is a contingency plan. But like you said, we _have_ to exhaust every other possibility before we even consider it."

"There's nothing else to find." Dean said, insistent. "I wasn't lying when I said I believe in us, I do. Hell, we've pulled the impossible out of our asses more than once, but it feels like too big of a risk this time. Michael is gonna get out, and when he does, he's gonna try and burn this world to nothing. I can't let that happen, _we_ can't let that happen and that box is the only sure-fire way to make sure he's contained."

"And you along with him."

Dean folded his lips between his teeth for a moment before smacking them apart, "Yeah, it sucks, but I'm not so up my own ass that I think my life is worth more than the lives of everybody else on the planet. I don't do this: you die, Sam dies, Jack dies, Mom dies, freaking everybody we've ever met and the other seven billion out there, they all die too. How is that the better option here?"

Cas was silent for a few moments, staring at Dean, the resolve on his face, the deep tiredness, his freckles standing out in the harsh florescent lighting, the fear in his eyes trying so hard to hide. A scared young boy forced to grow up too fast, a brave, incredible man with seven billion lives on his conscience, a strong and loyal friend, preparing to sacrifice any future he might have longed for. And Castiel understood why, he did, but...

"If your life was the trade, I could make it." He admitted quietly, squeezing slightly around Dean's forearm, the words catching in his throat on the way out. Dean frowned at him in surprise, those green eyes shrewd, trying to work out his meaning, he pressed on, swallowing hard, "To save the world, if the only way was to stand back and let you die, we could do that. Remember when you were going to try and kill Amara? We said our goodbyes and we let it happen because we had to, because your soul would have gone to Heaven, but _this_… Dean, this plan won't take your life. You will be trapped with Michael in a box in the middle of the ocean for eternity; fighting for control, kept alive through his grace. Even when he takes over, you think he will be kind to you? You think he'll just send you back to that bar to be buried in contentment? You think he'll let you die?"

"I know he won't." Dean muttered, gently shifting his arm under Cas' hand, Cas made to pull away but Dean placed his own hand on top, holding it there; this was an intimacy they rarely indulged in, the two of them; a touch for no other reason than because they wanted to touch, a leak in the carefully constructed dam that neither could bring themselves to stopper. It was all they could have, and it was enough because it had to be, "but Heaven or the Mal'ak, what's the difference? Good memories or bad, it's still just a box."

Dean's eyes were steady and sad as they looked back at him, he seemed to be growing calmer, even as Castiel grew more desperate, as though the act of arguing for his chosen course of action was firming his belief in it. Despite the fact that Dean hated confined spaces, that he always hesitated before dropping down into a narrow tunnel, or that he never even fully drew the curtain when he showered, something that Castiel had learned early on in their knowing each other, before Dean set a blanket ban on 'popping up' in bathrooms.

Dean's courage put Castiel to shame; his chest was tight, his lungs didn't seem to be working properly, and the only image in his head was of Dean trapped inside a metal coffin, a mockery of his original salvation.

"I did _not_ pull you out of Hell for you to throw yourself back in." Cas said, his eyes stinging with emotion. "If we do this, Sam and I are going to spend the rest of our lives knowing where you are, knowing what you're going through and knowing that we can't save you. How long before you begin to lose yourself? How long until you pray to me and I have to _hear_ it? How long until I have to listen as you scream, as you beg me for help that I can't give? How long-"

"-Stop that." Dean interrupted, his own eyes shiny with unshed tears that he blinked away, refusing to let them fall, and refusing to look at Cas, "Stop. You're making this harder than it has to be. Cas, the choice is simple here. I'm just one guy, you can't doom the world for one guy."

"Can't I?" Castiel said, steel in his voice now. No hesitation, pure reaction, pure instinct.

Dean smiled at that, a small, secret smile that Cas knew, it was the smile he got every time someone stood up for him, or got protective. It was the smile he got when someone confirmed that they loved him. It was one of Castiel's favourite smiles.

Dean gently brushed his thumb over the back of Castiel's hand and raised his eyes once more, "I don't want you to." He said, holding Cas' gaze, slicing through every quip dancing on the tip of his tongue, every argument he could make, every counterpoint or bargain or compromise, they were all gone with that sentence. Out of words, Castiel choked and swallowed and tried again, but nothing came. Nothing except the soothing motions of Dean's thumb and the warm pressure on his hand.

Dean chuckled softly, "That look on your face. Finally found a line you won't cross for me, huh?"

Castiel said nothing.

"This was why I couldn't say goodbye to you." Dean murmured, "I didn't wanna have to be the one to make you realise that there's nothing you can do."

"It's not over until you get in that box," Castiel said, he meant it to sound firm and commanding but instead it sounded like a plea, "there's still hope."

"Maybe," Dean said, his green eyes so sad and old beyond his years, "but you can't count on hope."

"But-" Cas said, floundering, "but we- we're supposed to be enough."

"We're gonna try, that's enough."

It felt like all of Castiel's organs had spontaneously vanished, leaving him empty and unable to breathe, he was lucky, he supposed, that he didn't need to, but he had grown accustomed to the habit and now that it had been ripped from him it felt wrong, like this whole thing felt wrong.

"You don't deserve this." Cas said quietly.

"Yeah, well..." Dean hedged, a sarcastic smile on his lips, "since when did we ever get what we deserve? It ain't about deserve, Cas, it's about what's right. And the Mal'ak box… I don't wanna get in that thing, but it is what's right."

Cas shook his head, if he denied it enough then he could stop it being true, and at the same time Dean's confession felt like a supercharged punch to the gut. Considering how hard he was fighting for it, it was difficult to remember that Dean didn't want this either, he was just the only one of them brave enough to do it anyway.

"We still have time, and I don't sleep. We'll find something, Dean, we will." He knew that this line of argument was weak, pinning everything on a maybe, on the idea of past successes, on pure denial; he wasn't sure if he was actually aiming to convince, or if he was just fighting because it was the only thing keeping him upright, the only thing holding back the maelstrom of despair that he could so easily drown in, and that was either a very fitting or very poor use of metaphor.

"You're a stubborn son of a bitch, you know that?" Dean said with an exhausted sigh,

"I've been told, yes."

Dean huffed a laugh and finally extracted himself from Cas' hand to lean back in his chair and stretch, Castiel heard a few pops as the carbon dioxide cavitation bubbles in his spine partially collapsed and Dean let out a groan of satisfaction. Cas pulled his hand back, already missing the warmth.

"I'm not asking you to give up," Dean said, with that same smile as before lighting his eyes fond, "I know that that's a battle not worth winnin'. I'm just saying, it'll go easier if we all accept that the Mal'ak box is endgame unless we find another way. And that it's a pretty big if."

"Should be easy to spot then."

Dean let out a full laugh at that and something squeezed in Cas' chest at the sound. After another full minute, Dean stood and Castiel followed suit, his body heavy and reluctant to leave this conversation, this cathartic purge of their shared worries and the quiet intensity that existed only between the two of them in vulnerability.

"I should get to bed, I'm beat." Dean said, rubbing his jaw and wincing when he pressed on the forming bruise, "literally."

"I can-" Cas offered, lifting a hand, it was an excuse, nothing more, an excuse to touch Dean, to fix something, but Dean waved him off,

"Nah, Sam's got a mean right hook, you can heal it tomorrow when it looks worse and he feels guilty about it." He tipped a wink and Castiel realised that he was watching as Dean plastered on his bravado again, piece by piece, working his way up to leaving the kitchen and the safe comfort they drew from each other.

"Alright." Cas said, but instead of lowering his hand, in a flash of reckless longing he tugged Dean in by the shoulder and wrapped his arms around him, tight.

"I'm scared too," he mumbled.

It was a few moments of what was probably surprise before Dean returned the hug, tentatively at first, more familiar, a light pat and an uncomfortable air, but when Cas didn't pull away Dean seemed to fall into it, tightening his arms, his hands fisting at the back of Castiel's coat. His stubble grazed Castiel's neck as he buried himself into it and still Castiel held on, as though he was trying to soak up all of Dean's fear and pain and misery into himself and replace it with comfort, as though he could protect him from the creature raging in his mind. As though he could be the guardian angel he'd tried to fashion himself into.

Castiel drew in a shuddering breath and the scent of Dean came tangled in the air, the smell of the hops from the beer, the almost-stale sharpness of nightmare-sweat that clung to his skin, the tang of gunmetal and leather and the softness of their laundry detergent, all of it translated into the voice in his head chanting _Dean, Dean, Dean_.

Castiel didn't know how long they stayed there, wrapped up in each other, feeling each other's chests move with each breath; hours might have passed before Dean's grip loosened, it may have taken days for the man to lift his head; the scratch of stubble interrupted by a brief softness of lips was gentle on his neck and coaxed out a sigh.

"Dean," Cas said quickly, before he was gone, before this moment could collapse back into time regulated by seconds too easily squandered, years too easily spent waiting.

Dean hummed to confirm he was listening, the vibration purring through his own chest where they were still pressed together, though Dean was shifting now, straightening, their bodies no longer the singular mass of shared feeling that neither was brave enough to acknowledge. Cas slowly allowed his own hands to fall, and if they skimmed down Dean's back as they did then so be it, but he couldn't completely pull away, not yet, his fingertips snagged in the bottom of Dean's shirt and Dean looked back at him, not confused or uncomfortable like Castiel had thought he would be, not even nervous, though his tongue darted out to wet his lips as he waited for Cas to finish his thought.

"The rest needs to be said before we can say goodbye."

Dean blinked and a crimson flush bloomed across his nose.

"I ain't – I ain't really one for talking," It was an apology, a plea for patience, a neon sign screaming that he wasn't ready. But that wasn't the point, or maybe it was precisely the point.

Cas smiled at him and placed a hand on his cheek for an all-too-brief moment before stepping away.

"Exactly."

Dean huffed out a laugh through his nose and his whole face softened, his eyes lighter than they had been for days.

"You're really gonna bet on how stubborn I can be?"

"Don't ask stupid questions." He said, his voice an echo of the past, another day when the world was ending and he placed all of his bets on the Winchesters.

Dean chuckled and turned to face the kitchen door, visibly bracing himself, and if, in his motion, their fingers brushed, so be it.

"Well alright then," Dean said, nodding, staring out into the dark corridor, the light of the kitchen bouncing strangely off the tiles, making the shadows curl into eerie shapes; he took a step forward and took Cas' hand with him, their fingertips had hooked together, although Castiel didn't remember moving them. Dean took a breath and another step and Castiel's hand fell back to his side. Dean didn't look back, although he hesitated in the doorway for half a second, his head turned to his shoulder as though he was about to say something and Castiel felt a sudden rush of panic, but the moment passed and Dean continued around the corner and out of sight.

Castiel waited until he heard the faint click of Dean's door before making his way to the library. If he had to read every single goddamned book in the entire bunker four times over to save Dean then that was the smallest of prices to pay.

He set to work with a vicious hope. Hope that he would find something, hope that he had helped Dean find the strength to hold on a little longer, hope that the Mal'ak box would be found by hunters six generations from now, empty and unused.

Because what he had said at the hospital had been true; he couldn't give up when that hope burned within him, when there was still that spark in Dean's eyes.

Dean Winchester _wanted_ to be saved.

**So... there it is... Thoughts?**

**Yes, I made Cas distrust the fridge. It seemed to work at the time.**

**All opinions and feedback are appreciated and will be loved and raised as my own.**

**Love Tibbins xx**


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